What Plays Out Beyond the Game

We all know the basic story, or at least we think we do: Tiger Woods recently crashed his shiny Escalade into a fire hydrant and a tree right outside his posh mansion.

From there though, things grow far more convoluted. Depending on who you ask, Tiger was assaulted by an enraged, golf-club-equipped wife, calling his attention-grabbing cocktail waitress mistress, attacked by vicious aliens or other such insanity. All of a sudden, women are coming out of the woodwork claiming sultry affairs with the golf star. News outlets are covering the story with such haughty condescension, you’d think Woods murdered his entire neighborhood with his car.

How is it, with pressing issues from health care and war in Afghanistan to the fight for same-sex marriage, that Americans are so easily sucked into such nonsense? Millions were badly fooled by the “balloon boy” yet, hardly a month later are willing to fall for the same junk headlines.

People are outraged (outraged!) that Tiger was only hit for a $164 fine and four points off his record. Apparently he should have to come clean with every gory detail and be summarily jailed for the next 43 years. The thing is, the general public has no right to learn all about his car accident. If Susie Homemaker crashed her Toyota into a tree tomorrow, no one would be clamoring to know why.

Tiger Woods is a public figure and therefore prone to much more scrutiny than the average citizen, but there has to be a limit on how much we can pry. It may come as a surprise, but not even Tiger is perfect. Unless the investigation turns criminal, he does not need to divulge a single fact about the accident.

Don’t get me wrong: I am not defending Woods. He is a grown (and absurdly wealthy) man who is fully capable of taking care of himself. I only wish to see stories like this taken out of “serious” news programs and kept where they belong–in seedy tabloids at your local supermarket.